


Fic Snippet: Changes

by ffoulkes_no



Category: The Dresden Files (TV)
Genre: Fic Snippets, Gen, Harry jumps to conclusions, short-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15039257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffoulkes_no/pseuds/ffoulkes_no
Summary: The curse is broken, and Harry comes to the horrifying realization that Hrothbert and Bob are two very different people. Three short snippets from an unfinished fic.





	Fic Snippet: Changes

**Author's Note:**

> Snippets from this fic were previously posted to my DW in a less-edited form in 2017.
> 
> Like most fic snippets I post, it's incredibly unlikely this will ever be finished.

Bob smiled, and Harry knew immediately that it wasn't his smile; there was a certain softness missing from the edges, a kindness that now didn't go deeper than skin. Harry wondered how much of Hrothbert had always been there, just beneath Bob's veneer of pleasantness, and how much the spell had freed from the curse's tethers.  
  
He realized too late that he'd been staring, and now the strange new Bob was staring back. His eyes were the same pale color that Harry had known since childhood, but there was now a biting cold there that made them entirely alien. Harry gave an involuntary shudder and quickly looked away. When Harry was a teenager, he'd found a book in his uncle's library filled with forbidden spells. No black magic, but the morally dubious, the taboo, the repugnant. Among the love potions and the eavesdropping spells, he'd read about Soul Gazing: seeing into another person's soul by looking into their eyes. It had once been a racial trait of all Wizards. Now, even the purest lineages lacked the ability. As a child, he'd wondered what it would be like to know someone so completely, to see their wants, their desires, their heart and mind in a single instant. As he stared hard at his own hands, trying not to look back up at the stranger who wore his friend's face, he felt a small rush of relief that the Soul Gaze, like many of the other strange and arcane things in his uncle's book, was seemingly lost to time.  
  


The awkward silence was blessedly short. The bells at the shop's front door made them both startle, and Harry gave a short, quiet oath of thanks to whatever higher power might be listening when Bob turned his gaze away to look toward their guest.  
  
Murphy came into the room like a force of nature, anger and stubborn righteousness nearly palpable in the air around her. She fixed on Harry and made a beeline for him.  
  
Bob bowed his head the slightest bit and stepped aside, giving Murphy way. The steel in his back didn't match his deferential gesture, but Murphy didn't seem to notice. She marched past without a glance, the white-hot glow of her displeasure not dimming in the least. The sight would have typically made Harry nervous, at best, but he found he felt nothing but gratitude at the interruption. He suddenly wondered if there was something to be said for the lesser of two evils.

  
  
\---  
  
  
  
“No ill deed goes completely to plan, as you well--”  
  
“Stop.”  
  
“...What?”  
  
“Just-- Just _stop_!” Harry had risen and advanced on Bob without warning, invading his personal space in a way that would have been presumptuous even when Bob was incorporeal. “Stop _pretending_!” He rarely used his height as a threat, but he did so now. Bob leaned down and away, startled by the suddenness of the outburst. "Stop acting like you give a shit about any of this! Bob cared about solving cases! He cared about _people_!" Harry pushed, advancing even closer, and bared his teeth, “Whoever the hell you are, _you're not Bob_.”  
  
The momentary expression on Bob's face nearly broke Harry's resolve. It was genuinely hurt and confused, and the slight quiver in his lip made Harry's gaze flick up to his eyes, to check for the beginnings of tears. It was _Bob_. But the hurt, and whatever other emotion it had brought with it, vanished just as quickly as it had come. Bob– or whatever the man in front of him now was –wore a mask as inscrutable as stone.  


“No,” he said, “you are right. I am not Bob.” There was venom, there. He stood straight and defiant, and now Harry backed up a few steps, wary. “ _I am Hrothbert_ ,” he said, and Harry could feel the Power in the name, running like electric current across the room. "I am the Sorcerer, I am the Necromancer, and I will no longer hide behind pleasantries and falsehoods.” He extended his hand, and Harry felt himself being pulled towards it. Struggling did little good. Hrothbert's power was like rolling thunder. Hrothbert grasped him hard about the neck, nearly choking, but not quite. When he spoke again, it was directly into Harry's ear, a deep growl that made some primal part of Harry's brain writhe in terror, “I am only sorry that I'll never get to finish what he started."  
  
Harry awoke on the floor several hours later. His neck ached, standing out only because it ached slightly more than the rest of him. Hrothbert was gone. Aside from a few small nick-knacks that had been knocked to the floor by the sudden burst of Power in the room, there was nothing out of place. But Harry still knew something incredibly important was missing.

  
  
\---  
  
  
Harry had been nursing his coffee for long enough that it had grown tepid. The coffee shop was hardly his first choice, but staying in the apartment wasn't possible. Everything felt electric, tinged with magic and memory that was now alien and painful. The latter somewhat literally; Hrothbert's show of force had been laced with strong emotion, leaving the entire room tainted with anger and something else that Harry couldn't identify, but that burned his nostrils and made his skin crawl.  


With a Wizard's perfect clarity, he mulled over Hrothbert's final words, again and again: ' _I'll never get to finish what he started_.' What did he mean by that? His thoughts shot back several years, to a corporeal Bob and a resurrected Justin Morningway. To the betrayal that wasn't a betrayal. To Bob sacrificing himself, so that Harry could live. He'd had his chance to finish what the bastard had started, and he hadn't taken it. Bob could have killed him and gone on with his life, free as a bird.  
  


_No_ , Harry realized, _not free_ _._ Once cursed, always cursed. Even mortal, Bob had been beholden to the Council's curse of servitude. He would have needed a master. Morningway was cunning, ruthless, and had treated Bob no better than his own human servants – often, even worse. That would not have changed, just because Bob had been restored to power.  
  
But Harry had always treated Bob well. Not perfectly, and he certainly felt a pang of guilt whenever he abused his rights over a being who could not disobey a Command, but Harry had always tried his best to do right by him. In truth, if there had been a way to break the curse then and there, even as Harry lay on the table at Bob's mercy, he might have agreed.  
  
And Bob surely knew. Harry wasn't a fool, but he was so easily manipulated; a little kindness, and he'd be as loyal as any hound. Bob had warned him against such things many times; with Bianca, with Heather. He'd always made such a fuss. Had he been smiling at his own joke? Or was he reinforcing the behavior, to make sure Harry remained open-hearted and kind, until the time was right?  
  
With a sympathetic master and patience tempered by 800 years of waiting, the opportunity for freedom would come again.

  
And it had.

  
With horrifying clarity, Harry's mind settled onto a realization: Bob had been a means to an end. A lie expertly crafted to gain Harry's trust. Hrothbert had been playing the long game, and Harry had been little more than a gamepiece.

  
His coffee was suddenly sloshing across the bar. Unaware, he'd gripped the flimsy paper cup too tightly, the bottom of the cup popping clean away. A seat or so down, a young, scruffy college-aged kid yelped, and lifted his laptop up from the counter. Harry winced, muttering a “jeeze, sorry!” and tried to stop the spill with a handful of napkins. He succeeded in keeping it from edging towards the kid and his computer, but it immediately changed course and poured over the edge of the bar, instead, landing on his own backpack.  
  
He swore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> After I posted this, I went spelunking through the tag for the first time in years, and realized it was somewhat similar in plot to something [Anne_Fairchild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Fairchild/pseuds/Anne_Fairchild/works?fandom_id=18263) had written as part of their Bob/Harry series of fics. Even the title of my snippet was a little too close to some of their wording. Yikes! I hadn't read their fic before writing my own (I first posted this elsewhere in Spring of 2017), but felt it prudent to change the title -- I don't want to step on any toes.
> 
> That being said, if you like smutty, emotion-driven Bob/Harry, go check out their stuff. You can never have too much Dresden Files.


End file.
